The country is facing an epidemic of unscrupulous debt collectors willing to pose as law enforcement and threaten arrest to squeeze dollars out of Americans, a top prosecutor said Tuesday as he announced the arrests of seven people who worked for an Atlanta-area company. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said the abusive practices have become so widespread that even a top FBI official in New York City got a call. “This has become something of an epidemic,” Bharara told a news conference. He described the workers at the defunct Williams, Scott & Associates LLC in Norcross, Georgia, as “ruthlessly persistent” as...

TEMECULA (CBSLA.com) — A group of suspects in Temecula have been arrested for reportedly using high-powered flashlights and megaphones to startle people sitting in parked cars and make them believe they were police officers. The suspects would order the victims to exit their vehicles and lie face down on the pavement, according to the Temecula Police Department. The first incident occurred at 6:45 p.m. Monday, at the intersection of Lakehouse Road and Harveston Drive, and the second stunt occurred at 8:40 that same night, in the 31000 block of Sonoma Lane. Investigators believe the incidents were pranks and that the...

A man who provided sign language interpretation on stage for Nelson Mandela’s memorial service, attended by scores of heads of state, was a “fake,” the national director of the Deaf Federation of South Africa said on Tuesday. The unidentified man seen around the world on television next to leaders like U.S. President Barack Obama “was moving his hands around but there was no meaning in what he used his hands for,” Bruno Druchen, the federation’s national director, told The Associated Press.

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court cited First Amendment rights to free speech in striking down a law that made it a federal crime to falsely claim to have been awarded military-honor medals. The 6-3 majority opinion upheld a Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that had declared unconstitutional the Stolen Valor Act, a 2006 statute Congress passed "to protect the reputation and meaning" of military honors.

S 190.25 Criminal impersonation in the second degree.A person is guilty of criminal impersonation in the second degree when he: 1. Impersonates another and does an act in such assumed character with intent to obtain a benefit or to injure or defraud another; or 2. Pretends to be a representative of some person or organization and does an act in such pretended capacity with intent to obtain a benefit or to injure or defraud another; or 3. (a) Pretends to be a public servant, or wears or displays without authority any uniform, badge, insignia or facsimile thereof by which such...

MONTGOMERY HEIGHTS, W.Va. -- Two armed men posing as police officers broke into a Fayette County home early Saturday, and then sprayed the people inside with pepper spray, bound their hands and feet with duct tape, and tried to rob them, the Fayette sheriff said. The suspects identified themselves as state police when they broke into the residence in the Montgomery Heights area around midnight Saturday, according to a news release from Fayette Sheriff Steve Kessler. They wore dark masks and clothing with what looked like some type of police insignia on their jackets. The suspects were armed with a...

California's law making it illegal to impersonate people online just went into effect. Now this hobby will get you dinged for up to $1,000 and/or a year in jail. So you'd better put those plans to create a hilarious Marissa Mayer Facebook account back in the bag. (Will this new law eliminate the wave of Fake ___ ____ blogs and Twitter accounts--or the original, Fake Steve Jobs? Probably not. The folks who run those are probably protected by the word "fake.")

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. -- A DeKalb County woman was traumatized after she said she accidentally invited two strangers into her home during an attempted robbery. Her home is protected by two pit bulls and surveillance cameras, but she said she was unprepared when two would-be robbers dressed as police officers stopped by. “You’re violating someone’s trust and getting their guard down by saying you’re a police officer,” the victim told Channel 2’s Amanda Cook. When a man and woman showed up wearing fake police badges, she let them into her home. But the pair seemed to get nervous about the...

Police say as many as five masked men wearing FBI baseball caps invaded a home in the Annandale section of Fairfax County on Thursday. Fairfax County Police say the masked men were all wearing police style tactical gear when they entered the home around 12:15 p.m. They tied up a woman and her son who was home with a toddler, and then searched the house. The men then took off in a gold or beige Cadillac Escalade. It's unclear what the men wanted and police wouldn't say what they took. The man and woman who were tied up inside the...

COOPER CITY, Fla. -- Three men posing as FBI agents took off when the owner of a Cooper City home they were trying to rob shot at them, the Broward Sheriff's Office said. Three men wearing baseball hats and T-shirts with the letters FBI on the back pulled a sport utility vehicle into the driveway of the home shortly after 4 a.m. Monday, Miami TV station WPLG reported. Two of the men got out of the SUV, while the third acted as a lookout, police said. The two men tried to open the home's front door with a crowbar, but...

Former South Florida standout posed as teen in Texas: policeT, The moves make the man, and in the case of South Florida high school basketball star Guerdwich Montimere, the moves discovered the boy was a man. The 22-year-old former Fort Lauderdale standout player was arrested Tuesday after police said he posed as a 16-year-old boy playing on a Texas high school team. Montimere, a star at Dillard High a few years ago, was discovered by two South Florida coaches playing at Permian High in Odessa, Texas. Posing as sophomore Jerry Joseph, Montimere was confronted by Boyd Anderson Assistant coach Cedric...

NORTH BERGEN -- Two men posing as sheriff's officers robbed a home in the township early this morning, police said. When the two suspects knocked on the door of an apartment at a multi-dwelling house on the 6200 block of Meadowview Avenue at around 1 a.m., they identified themselves as sheriff's officers, flashed gold-colored badges, and were let into the apartment by a 56-year-old male resident, reports said. The robbers put the man into plastic handcuffs and moved him, his wife, and another relative into a bedroom while they searched the house, reports said. The robbers, who never showed a...

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- There's a warning about a trick a group of men is using to lure women and rob them. They set up a fake road block on Woodson Park near Lake Houston Parkway in northeast Harris County and attacked a woman who was driving by. Related Content More: Got a story idea? Let us know! What happened to this woman and her daughter was so frightening she says they relive it every day. Woodson Park Drive near Humble is very familiar to a woman ABC13 isn't identifying. She lives nearby. But on the night of April 22, something...

CLEARWATER, Fla., May 5 (UPI) -- A Florida man was sentenced to 179 days in jail for impersonating his identical twin brother at a criminal trial. Assistant State Attorney Evan Brodsky said Matthew Mauceri, 40, was due in a Pinellas County courtroom at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday and asked his twin, Marcus, to stand in for him when it appeared he was going to be late in flying to Florida from Indiana, the Tampa (Fla.) Tribune reported Wednesday.

BRISTOL, Va. – A woman accused of skipping bond was handcuffed, sexually assaulted during a strip search and hauled off to jail Oct. 9. But the three who arrested her were only masquerading as drug task force agents. On top of that, police said, the fake agents nabbed the wrong woman and passed her to a bail bondsman in the hopes of receiving a reward. The bondsman then took the woman to the Bristol Virginia Jail, where she was immediately freed because jailers quickly discerned her true identity. “She clearly had identification to clearly show she wasn’t the person in...

It appears that when certain citizens of Austin get behind their computers, they turn into monstrous villains. This, at least, appears to be the view of Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo. According to the Austin American-Statesman, the chief is considering pursuing commenters on blogs who have either impersonated him or his officers or maligned them beyond the boundaries of legal tolerance. Options under discussion appear to be not only libel suits, but also criminal charges if the police believe these are warranted. It so happens that Texas passed a state law on September 1 that specifically targets those who "use...

ATLANTA—Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Gregory Jones, FBI Atlanta, announces the following arrests today at Alpharetta, Georgia: Louis Joseph Aprile, age 49, of Alpharetta, Georgia, was arrested today, June 9, 2009, along with Michael Garveigh, age 45, of Roswell, Georgia. Aprile is being charged with violation of 18 USC 912, Impersonation of a Government Official, while Garveigh is being charged with violation of 18 USC 915, Impersonation of a Foreign Official. The arrests of both Aprile and Garveigh by the FBI came after the two met with members of the Alpharetta Police Department as part of a scheme to recover...

In a 9-0 decision, the justices say the crime is limited to those who knew they had stolen another person's Social Security number. The decision limits efforts to prosecute illegal workers. Reporting Form Washington -- The Supreme Court today took away one tool for prosecuting and deporting workers who are in this country illegally, ruling that the crime of identity theft is limited to those who knew they had stolen another person's Social Security number. The 9-0 decision overturns part of an Illinois man's conviction for using false documents. The court agreed he could be imprisoned for using an ID...

Laptop may hold key to high-level scam February 7, 2009 Post-Tribune staff report A traffic stop at Indiana Dunes State Park has led to an ongoing investigation involving a man whose past includes swindling Fox News and national political figures, local law enforcement agents say. Joseph Cafasso, being held at Porter County Jail, was the subject of a 2002 New York Times article and has a Wikipedia page detailing his exploits. Officials declined to talk about the ongoing case, which involves several federal agencies. "There are a lot of things involved here that I can't get into at this point,"...

Terror Linked Iranian in 'Kidnap' Puzzle March 05, 2007 New York Post Oran Dan JERUSALEM -- A retired Iranian general linked to the killing of five American soldiers in Baghdad vanished mysteriously in Istanbul last month, Israeli media reported yesterday. Arab newspapers are hinting the CIA and/or the Israeli spy agency Mossad are behind the disappearance of Gen. Ali Reza Askari, the reports said. Askari, a former deputy defense minister, arrived in Istanbul on a flight from Damascus on Feb. 7, left his luggage in his hotel room - and vanished. The missing general was in charge of Iranian undercover...

Greetings Veterans and lawyers on FR, I received the following email yesterday."is it illegal to misrepresent yourself as a soldier? In any venue. I know of someone who is telling people that she is a four year veteran of the iraq war. she is only twenty..so im sure that she is full of crap...I have family in the armed forces and would like to know becuase it is a great insult to those of us who actually have family and freinds risking thier lives for our country" -Sxxxxxxxxx Gxxxxxx" (name redacted by me) I went to thomas.gov looking through the...

COULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED TO A BETTER PERSON! Well ... I won't even pretend that we at the Neal Boortz Show haven't enjoyed this story immensely. Every once in a while it seems that someone gets exactly what's coming to them, and this is what happened to Michael Duga. Who is Michael Duga? Perhaps you remember a few weeks ago when we did a Boortz Power Lunch to benefit the Wounded Warrior Project. We really did want former Georgia Senator and wounded Vietnam veteran Max Cleland on the air .. not to talk about politics, but to talk about our wounded...

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A Florida man described as patriotic, who faced prison time for wearing a U.S. Army uniform at Orlando International Airport, won a legal battle Thursday when an Orange County, Fla., judge ruled the state law unconstitutional. In May, Fernando Montas, who is not a member of the military, was arrested at OIA for violating a state law prohibiting civilians from wearing military clothing. "My client is patriotic with what is going on overseas and he is proud to be in this country and was basically exercising his First Amendment rights to freedom of speech," Montas' attorney Rajan...

SELLS, Ariz. Illegal immigrant smugglers tried a new way to get past the Border Patrol. This afternoon, southwest of Tucson, agents stopped a van painted to look like a Border Patrol vehicle. A spokesman for the Border Patrol says agents working south of Sells near the border saw a vehicle pass their location. The real agents say they initially noticed it had markings of the Border Patrol. However, the feds say the van, carrying 30 illegal immigrants, was bogus. The immigrants are being deported. The driver escaped.

Threats included arrest, deportation Strong-arm tactics were standard procedure for a La Mesa man who ran a debt collection business out of El Cajon, posing at times as a lawyer or investigator for the district attorney. Edward Mitchell Davis told people he contacted that police were on their way to arrest them and the only way to avoid jail was to pay him immediately for debts the people often didn't even owe, prosecutors said. If he thought they were immigrants, Davis told them they could be deported if they didn't pay or could be arrested at the airport when they...

A mother charged with abducting her two children was accused of posing as a man while on the run, and authorities say the heavyset woman with cropped hair and a slight mustache even had the kids calling her "Daddy." Shellie White, 30, said it was all a misunderstanding, claiming in a jail interview with The Associated Press that she never tried to hide her identity or change her appearance. White was arrested in Roanoke Rapids on Friday, more than two years after she allegedly took her children from Arizona when they 3 and 5. Investigators said she and another woman...

Reggie trying to get officer impersonation charge tossed By The Associated Press TGRETNA -- A Democratic Party operative who is the brother-in-law of U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy has asked a state judge to throw out a charge accusing him of impersonating a police officer in suburban New Orleans in June 2002. Raymond Reggie's attorney, Mike Ellis, contends in court documents that the two-year time limit to bring the case to trial expired June 21. But prosecutor Kim McElwee said she has until October to try the case. At issue is what court events stop the clock on Reggie's right to...

Frank Strickland knew something was wrong when Lisa Jane Phillips told stories of heroism in Iraq and Afghanistan on her college campus in Raleigh, N.C. The Meredith College student said she was a pilot, and wore an Air Force captain's uniform with numerous medals to prove it. Phillips frequently left school for a few weeks at a time, saying she was going on a mission. But Strickland, the campus police chief and a helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War, was skeptical of her claims of two-week deployments to combat areas like Iraq and Afghanistan. He notified federal investigators of his...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. soldiers found several caches of weapons late Sunday and early Monday in raids on homes in southern Baghdad that authorities allege were being used as supply points for the insurgency. The weapons were found by soldiers of the 5th Brigade of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division, which has been patrolling the capital's Al-Rashid district, reported CNN producer Tomas Etzler, who is embedded with the unit. Five people, including an Iraqi police officer, were detained.

Downtown Little Rock is the scene of an intense search after police arrested one man and found weapons, ammunition and a gas mask on a rooftop. The situation began Wednesday evening after the suspect, Gared Tumblesome, tried to check into a downtown hotel, claiming to be an Air Force Special Forces member. Hotel employees became suspicious and alerted police. Tumblesome was later arrested as he reportedly tried to climb down from a rooftop in the 200 block of West 2nd Street. A search of the rooftop revealed the weapons and ammunition. Police are still searching for another man, believed to...

PUTNAM CO., WV, Nov. 5 - With the world as it is now, an attack at a power plant gets even more attention. And it comes just days after the news leaked that the coast guard was already looking for a suspicious boat in our region. At this point, the coast guard is not sure whether the two things are connected. It could be a coincidence. But here's the good thing out of this whole mess: AEP says it was a test that security passed. Putnam County Sheriff Stan Farley says, "Someone tried to come on the property." They ...

Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - The fraudulent website created by an unidentified critic of pro-gun researcher John Lott may, based on new information revealed Tuesday, be linked to an anti-gun advocacy group. The owner of "AskJohnLott.Org" also posted a disclaimer late Monday claiming the site was a parody. "That's like stealing money and then, when you get caught, saying you won't steal anymore," Lott said of the disclaimer Tuesday. "They're not giving the money back that they have already stolen." As CNSNews.com reported Monday, the "AskJohnLott.org" site is neither operated nor authorized by Lott, who said it contains misrepresentations of his...

President Bush and French President Jacques Chirac may not be phone pals anymore, but that didn't stop Chirac from discussing Saddam Hussein, the war in Iraq, and other serious issues with another famous American: Jerry Lewis. Except it turns out that the man who had a five-minute phone conversation with Chirac last week wasn't Lewis, but rather a Los Angeles DJ impersonating the comedian. A source at KROQ 106.7 confirms that ''Kevin and Bean Show'' entertainment reporter Ralph Garman got through to Chirac by claiming to be France's most loved American funnyman -- a prank that has the real Lewis...